Melbourne, Jan 20 (AP) Andy Murray is out of the Australian Open two days after posting his first win at the season-opening tennis Grand Slam tournament in five years.

The former No. 1-ranked Murray lost to 120th-ranked Taro Daniel 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 in the second round.

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Murray only lost five games in a best-of-five-set Davis Cup encounter against Daniel in their only previous encounter, and he had never lost to anyone ranked above No. 91 at a major tournament.

But Daniel, a 28-year-old qualifier from Japan, broke in the ninth game of the third set to take a 5-4 lead and then served it out to advance to the third round of a major for the first time.

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The 34-year-old Murray, a five-time runner-up in Australia, was playing on a wild-card entry.

His win over 21st-seeded Nikoloz Basilashvili in the first round was his first at the Australian Open since 2017. Injuries and illness kept him out in 2018 (hip), 2020 (pelvis) and 2021 (COVID-19), and he lost a five-setter in the first round in 2019, which many thought might have been his last in Australia. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)